quote:Scientists have found that humans domesticated cattle around 10,000 years ago in the Central Nile region in today's Sudan.
The preliminary conclusions from researchers at the Polish Academy of Sciences who recently returned from excavations, overturns traditional thoughts that domesticated cattle came to East Africa from the lands of Turkey and Iraq.
Researchers are now waiting for precise sample dating results that will confirm their age. All indications are, however, that it is a period far preceding the 5th millennium BCE, a commonly accepted date of introduction of domesticated cattle from the Middle East. This would mean that domestication took place locally.
The area of the latest research was the Letti Basin in the Central Nile Valley. So far, this area has been known mainly as the economic base of the capital of the medieval kingdom of Makuria - Old Dongola, where Polish excavation missions have been working for five decades.
Dr. Piotr Osypiński from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology PAS, who conducts research in the Letti Basin together with Dr. Marta Osypińska from the Institute of Archaeology of the University of Wrocław said: “The traces of human presence in this area are definitely older and reach the 8th millennium BCE. We focused on them during the latest research".
Researchers call this area the great African intersection, because this is where the trails of animal and people, existing for millennia along the Nile, cross the Sahel belt - the southern border of Sahara.
In this area, on the edge of the desert and arable areas, the researchers discovered archaeological sites, several millennia older than the ancient civilizations and the Christian kingdom of Makuria. Their research sheds light on the topic of domesticating cattle by the first shepherds about 10,000 years ago.
The puzzle is where the domesticated cattle of early Eastern Sahara shepherds came from, says archaeozoolologist, Dr. Marta Osypińska.
Geneticists suggest that all domestic cattle we know today originated from a herd of aurochs that lived about 10,000 years ago in the lands of today's Turkey and Iraq. Therefore, it would have to reach Africa in a domesticated form, according to the prevailing views in the 5th-6th millennium BCE.
However, archaeologists thought earlier that African cattle was domesticated also locally, in the Eastern Sahara region. The deserting ecosystem was to be conducive to 'strengthening relations' between humans and aurochs, and humans had followed the herds of these large ruminants from the earliest times. However, there was no direct evidence that such a process actually took place, i.e. the remains of wild cattle and its transitional and domesticated forms. In the case of African domestication, the very presence of the remains of archaic cattle (in sites older than those indicated by geneticists at 5th-6th millennium BC) would constitute such evidence.
Dr. Osypińska said: “Due to the lack of finds (from earlier excavations) in the form of well -preserved bones of large ruminants, the idea of local domestication of cattle was abandoned, and genetic reports dominated the scientific debate. Meanwhile, during our research in Letti, we made discoveries that shed new light and allow to resume the debate about the origin of cattle in Africa.”
At one of the sites from the beginning of the Holocene Age (approx. 10,000 years ago), the researchers discovered the remains of domesticated cattle with 'aurochs-like' features. They were among the bones of other, strictly wild species of animals inhabiting the savannah.
The researchers are waiting for precise sample dating results, which will confirm their age and allow to talk about the local domestication.
Osypiński said: “That group of people already knew ceramic vessels, used quern-stones to grind cereal grains (wild varieties of millet), so they can be called early-Neolithic communities. They still hunted wild savannah animals, with one only exception - cattle at an early stage of domestication.”
From a layer from the same period, archaeologists extracted a tiny clay figurine depicting a cow. Although the head has not survived, according to the discoverers the silhouette undoubtedly points to a large ruminant. Very similar figurines are known for many shepherd cultures, including the Nuer people from South Sudan, the researchers say.
Tukuler Member # 19944
posted
Haven't read it yet but is there evidence of local and vicinity continuity to today's Sudani cattle folk?
So the initial spreads were both northward but very much westward?
Related; do you see this in any 'implications' re the apparent cattle cult like aspects of pre-historic Turkey?
Is this about bovid domestication in Africa or 'evolution' of a breed.
Are herds of continental Africa a different [sub-]species than those of Eurasia?
Just some thoughts racing around my head inspired by thread title alone.
beyoku Member # 14524
posted
Bad link
BrandonP Member # 3735
posted
quote:Originally posted by beyoku: Bad link
Should be fixed now.
Doug M Member # 7650
posted
The polish have been doing work in Sudan for a while especially trying to rescue ancient sites being flooded as a result of new Dams that were built and the expansion of farms.
Here is a paper that ties in with the discoveries about domestication.
quote: Current work on the PalaeoAffad Project allows us to contribute greatly to the legacy of prehistoric research in the Middle Nile Valley. This paper presents the state of research on Late Pleistocene settlement on both banks of the river. Based on absolute dates obtained in the Affad Basin (since MIS5 up to the 5th millennium BP), the prehistory of the area has become an important reference point for general NE-African studies. We were able to investigate most of the Palaeolithic sites there before the landscape was totally changed by the industrial farms in areas that had been inaccessible for traditional agriculture up to now.
....
Until 1997, no comprehensive research had been conducted on the Stone Age in this part of the Nile Valley (Fig. 1 ). Only one other project, directed by Bogdan Żurawski, marked the beginning of a wide-range, multi-aspect survey of prehistoric settlement remnants on the right bank of the Nile from Old Dongola, to the suburbs of ancient Napata. At that time, 300 locations of Stone Age chronology were recorded in a zone several hundred metres wide in what was then a belt touching the crops and settlement. At that time, Sudan did not differ signicantly from what Prof. Kobusie-wicz had known from his CPE research. As it seems now, these were to be the last years of such conditions in themiddle part of the Nile Valley, namely with electricity provided solely from generators, a sparse telecommunications network and a lack of paved roads and bridges. It was also the most urgent time to record the landscape of the past cultures of this area. Indeed, within just two decades, most archaeological sites discovered by Southern Dongola Reach Survey (SDRS) have ceased to exist.
"A 10K BC Spanyard can kick a few flea bitten goats around and they call them shepherds. The Khoisan can travel around with goats and lions and they are still considered foragers.
This is framed as NE African back migration yet this does not make sense when Dinka related groups herd cattle yet they are barely related to said NE ancestry unless we are including them with NE African ancestry."
SlimJim Member # 23217
posted
quote:Originally posted by Forty2Tribes: This is exactly what I said a few years ago.
"A 10K BC Spanyard can kick a few flea bitten goats around and they call them shepherds. The Khoisan can travel around with goats and lions and they are still considered foragers.
This is framed as NE African back migration yet this does not make sense when Dinka related groups herd cattle yet they are barely related to said NE ancestry unless we are including them with NE African ancestry."
quote:Scientists have found that humans domesticated cattle around 10,000 years ago in the Central Nile region in today's Sudan.
The preliminary conclusions from researchers at the Polish Academy of Sciences who recently returned from excavations, overturns traditional thoughts that domesticated cattle came to East Africa from the lands of Turkey and Iraq.
Researchers are now waiting for precise sample dating results that will confirm their age. All indications are, however, that it is a period far preceding the 5th millennium BCE, a commonly accepted date of introduction of domesticated cattle from the Middle East. This would mean that domestication took place locally.
The area of the latest research was the Letti Basin in the Central Nile Valley. So far, this area has been known mainly as the economic base of the capital of the medieval kingdom of Makuria - Old Dongola, where Polish excavation missions have been working for five decades.
Dr. Piotr Osypiński from the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology PAS, who conducts research in the Letti Basin together with Dr. Marta Osypińska from the Institute of Archaeology of the University of Wrocław said: “The traces of human presence in this area are definitely older and reach the 8th millennium BCE. We focused on them during the latest research".
Researchers call this area the great African intersection, because this is where the trails of animal and people, existing for millennia along the Nile, cross the Sahel belt - the southern border of Sahara.
In this area, on the edge of the desert and arable areas, the researchers discovered archaeological sites, several millennia older than the ancient civilizations and the Christian kingdom of Makuria. Their research sheds light on the topic of domesticating cattle by the first shepherds about 10,000 years ago.
The puzzle is where the domesticated cattle of early Eastern Sahara shepherds came from, says archaeozoolologist, Dr. Marta Osypińska.
Geneticists suggest that all domestic cattle we know today originated from a herd of aurochs that lived about 10,000 years ago in the lands of today's Turkey and Iraq. Therefore, it would have to reach Africa in a domesticated form, according to the prevailing views in the 5th-6th millennium BCE.
However, archaeologists thought earlier that African cattle was domesticated also locally, in the Eastern Sahara region. The deserting ecosystem was to be conducive to 'strengthening relations' between humans and aurochs, and humans had followed the herds of these large ruminants from the earliest times. However, there was no direct evidence that such a process actually took place, i.e. the remains of wild cattle and its transitional and domesticated forms. In the case of African domestication, the very presence of the remains of archaic cattle (in sites older than those indicated by geneticists at 5th-6th millennium BC) would constitute such evidence.
Dr. Osypińska said: “Due to the lack of finds (from earlier excavations) in the form of well -preserved bones of large ruminants, the idea of local domestication of cattle was abandoned, and genetic reports dominated the scientific debate. Meanwhile, during our research in Letti, we made discoveries that shed new light and allow to resume the debate about the origin of cattle in Africa.”
At one of the sites from the beginning of the Holocene Age (approx. 10,000 years ago), the researchers discovered the remains of domesticated cattle with 'aurochs-like' features. They were among the bones of other, strictly wild species of animals inhabiting the savannah.
The researchers are waiting for precise sample dating results, which will confirm their age and allow to talk about the local domestication.
Osypiński said: “That group of people already knew ceramic vessels, used quern-stones to grind cereal grains (wild varieties of millet), so they can be called early-Neolithic communities. They still hunted wild savannah animals, with one only exception - cattle at an early stage of domestication.”
From a layer from the same period, archaeologists extracted a tiny clay figurine depicting a cow. Although the head has not survived, according to the discoverers the silhouette undoubtedly points to a large ruminant. Very similar figurines are known for many shepherd cultures, including the Nuer people from South Sudan, the researchers say.
I always knew evidence for local African bovine domestication was going to be somewhere in the vicinity of the Nile and Eastern Sahara and that such evidence was going to be found eventually. It was only a matter of time.
There were 4 main independent domestication events of cattle based on region and corresponding subspecies: Tuarine (Bos Taurus) in Southwest Asia, Nilot (Bos Africanus) in North Africa, Zebu (Bos Indicus) in South Asia, and last but not least Banteng (Bos javanicus) in Southeast Asia. The last was bred for drafting and meat instead of dairy which is why the banteng of all cattle subspecies produces the least milk which is even shown in the basic anatomy of the animal—banteng cows have the smallest udders. This is why despite the domestication of both the banteng and the water buffalo, Southeast Asians have the lowest rates of lactose persistence in Eurasia. When dairy was traditionally consumed in Southeast Asia it was done so in minute amounts and usually as additives in cooking. Interestingly, when milk was drunk, it was only done so in a fermented beverage called dadiah or dadhi in Indonesia. Fermentation is the only natural process that can break down lactose as even cooking could not accomplish this. In parts of the Philippines, dediye is still drunk and can even used to cook rice in as a delicacy.
^ Note the map above excludes Bos javanicus and the territories for Namadicus (zebu) and especially Africanus are misleading. Zebu historically range in western India and Pakistan and as far as Afghanistan not to mention further east into Myanmar. While Africanus ranged much further south into the Great Lakes, the Horn region, and throughout the Sahel not to mention certain breeds going into Southern Africa owned by Khoin-Khoin.
Many scholars are beginning to agree that B. africanus is NOT derived from Southwest Asian tuarine but rather constitute their own subspecies that instead shares a common ancestry with Southwest Asian taurine. This is supported by certain anatomical features noted in rock paintings from the Saharan region like saddle-back and horn shape with large inter-horn width and was recently verified by genetics, the latter I’m sure you’re more familiar with.
Here are several websites with info on the history of cattle in the Nile Valley, especially Egypt:
posted
is there any synthesis between all these African cattle papers? Haven't done a side by side comparison but off the top of my head they seem out of kilter with each other.
Mansamusa Member # 22474
posted
These two papers are unpublished so far. There is one major review paper from Brass, which is typical Eurocentric excuse making, placing the origins of cattle domestication "somewhere in Eurasia":
Brass Early North African Cattle Domestication and Its Ecological Setting: A Reassessment
Tukuler Member # 19944
posted
♫ when I was in knee pants dem teachers try n teach me negroes no can do milk cos deyz too dumb to herd cattle in africa ♫
all the while I was shlurpin down malteds and drinkin what my weekly milk allowance at school paid for and sneakily out the carton in the refrigerator. Remember being chided 'What you think we got a cow in the yard?' Ain't slowed down yet.
Ever since African cattle domestication, with cult, was found so old in Bir Kiseiba/Nabta Playa and raw milk consumption was proven in "Sudanese" inhabited Tropical North Africa and the Fulani T-13910 lactase persistence allele variant, the move has been to retake cattle domestication and milking and even if left in Africa get it back far away from Negroland.
The OP article is great affirmative news for the location and apparent "Sudanese" founders. Brass scares me trying to turn the West African Monsoon into some Afro-Asian monsoon. Dare I trust his interpretations? Brass' solo effort article is an exercise in vindicating one's decades old opinion no matter what, especially no team of co-authors to argue with. But that also means no co-signers.
All and still, I'm very interested in the import and movement of humped Zebu into and around Africa. Cattle Fulani lore claims all cattle belong to them. Rupestral art and old old Hal Pulaaren toys indicate humpless cattle. So to whom did the Zebu in and of Africa previously belong to?
Djehuti Member # 6698
posted
Here's an interesting dissertation paper on the topic published in Germany as part of a Max-Planck research:
The author's findings seem to agree that cattle domestication began somewhere in the Libyan Desert area between eastern Libya and western Egypt including the Toubou area.
posted 
